I've said it for years. You pay Karl to coach players hard, and make them develop habits. Carmelo Anthony maybe most of all, JR Smith, Nene, Afflalo, owe a hell of a lot to George Karl in terms of how they developed into players, and learned the game. Karl made Melo develop his post game as much as he has and figure out how to take what defenses give him in terms of how to figure out how to attack. Made JR develop other facets of his game (he didn't figure out how to incorporate it all until Woodson let him play, and JR could stop hating his coach). Hell I can go back and say a lot of the same for what he's done in the past with his other teams like with Payton and Kemp.

Karl is a basic principles coach, teaches habits that aren't complex at all. But when he faces a style that these principles don't work well against, or another coach simply makes adjustments to figure him out....that's when you get the first true 8 vs 1 upset and a poor playoff record overall in Denver. Yet a pleasing regular season record...teams don't really adjust that much in the regular season.